Modern-Day Saints
Hot, Unstoppable, Independent Women
”Cabaret Artist, 1900” who knots all her own clothes. What’s a woman gonna do when she gets the flu? Put on a flu mask and carry on as normal! “A woman wearing a flu mask, 1919” This “Girl on a Moped, 1965” can stay out late, with ample light on the front or plenty of room for jim-jams and a bleep-brush on the back.
No Saints in the Amazon
Most of us tend to take saintliness quite lightly. We speak of our mothers as saints when we (finally) acknowledge their patience is of a superior quality. Any unselfish deed is quick to praise a man a saint. Keep up the good work, we hope to convey. But what about the real, immortal Saints of the Catholic Church: who are they? It begs us to ask simultaneously: where are they, which is where the true spiritual reality of saints, for most of us, begins to pale.
This post is not meant to examine the wisdom or nonsense of the Catholic Church but to discover whether we still consider saints in the same way as the ladies with their Books of Hours upon their laps did. Are they still living entities intertwined with our physical reality? And are we able to make new saints with any conviction (I am thinking of Mother Teresa, for example)? My examination of our relationship to saints has brought me to compare them to the Ascended Masters, at whom I will be taking a brief closer look, farther down.
May it be clear from the outset that ever since they made Jude Law the Young Pope, I became a great fan of the Vatican. No, seriously, I love a great cathedral and feel right at home in any abbey. I also am frequently awed by our innumerable saints (literally, nobody can put a number on how many there are). Who isn't inspired by a tale of valour and endurance?
Jude Law as Pope Pius XIII (Lenny) in “The Young Pope”, 2016” | Saints Cecilia, Valerian, and Tiburtius by Botticini
I got to thinking on all this as spritual researcher with my pragmatic and empiric glasses on. I gather the touchstones and decide whether it is possible to touch beyond knowledge as a set of relationships between categories, to reach an awareness of the spiritual provenance to all that IS, grounded upon our solid earth, including our present-day surrogate abstractions which have replaced visions of actual spiritual entities, on the whole. Anthroposophy aims to get us thinking in images again but then minus the ecstatic clairvoyancy. We need to use our brains, and clear thinking, but also perceive with higher organs. What does that mean? Let us first state that a progressive shift in consciousness-perception took place around about the time the Greeks started to replace their oracles with philosophers; and a further marked shift with the rapid decline in clairvoyant imagining in the Renaissance, when the bird's eye-view perspective shifted to the earth-cross/compass one. The rest of this new freedom of thinking will have to fall into place later.
I have been much alerted, once the moreover, to the difference in factual knowledge and spiritual seeing (we call belief) by "The Song of Trees" by David George Haskell, which highlights the Amazonian peoples' ecological sense which is for them a union of spiritual relationships experienced in a most biological manner.
←Shrunken head from the Shuar people, on display in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
The Amazonians don't have a meritocracy so the idea of Sainthood cannot be formed there. They live in a holy communion with the spirits most closely tied to nature, anyway, and appeal to the Higher Worlds through trees, animals and single celled organisms that penetrate the moist air around them. These are very materialistic people and neither atheistic or polytheistic, or even pagan in their communications with the spirit world that merges with nature. They are just living it with a sense of "belonging to themselves". I don't think we can say they "love"nature, but they certainly revere it and hear its needs as they do their own: which may form a symbiosis but not one big melting pot of happy-clappy existence! The Amazonians are a warrior people, programmed to fight for their emancipation as spiritual entities.
These people have no organised religion. Just a few spiritual observances or reset buttons fine-tuning their alignments. Religion comes into play in over-crowded situations when power structures force you into artificial constructs and relationships become invented, and you loose a sense of connect to your origins (which are spiritual). The Amazonians have an inverse-church, which is the forest keeping the self-serving surviors in (a tighly knit ecological system) and offers them an opportunity "out", along a path of self-realisation. This is to individualise themselves as a spiritual hierarchy of their own making. Maybe a primitive form of individualisation, but one still very closely connected to the working principles of such separation - possibly only in concentrated awareness of the unifying principle that lends spirit its original meaning. This is nourished by the the primary importance lent to the community. These primitive peoples are working with very reliable tools of consciousness (that form the stepping stones into higher imagination, inspiration, intuition)!
[We may sense a purity of contact/alignment with Spirit in the Amazonian tribes and long for it in the West, which may explain our interest in shamanic rituals (notably with the use of Ayahuascha - not something I personally will advocate as a method for initiation into the Higher Worlds, preferring an anthroposophical approach myself. From my standpoint there are disadvantages to "going back"; although for some it may make a life-altering detour.]
Thus we all started out knowing our true mission as spirit incarnate. Now, only a few peoples know what they know as we were supposed to know (and for which we got kicked out of the Unknowing state - or Innocent State of Eden).
Part 2
The Slog of Sainthood
It is impossible to find the ratio of men to women saints, when nobody even knows how many saints there are in total (some estimates say there are 10.000 venerable ones; others can only find less than a 1000 proper saints; there seem to be around 275 well documented female saints.
Becoming a real saint takes more than getting your head chopped off after having done a few good deeds; or ending up on the stake, roasted on a grill to a crisp, or having the life stoned out of you. It’s a combination of factors, but nasty demises are not obligatory.
It might be nice if we all knew what the criteria are because couldn’t we all use a bit of extra attention post-mortem? Is this not also the perk of Sainthood? Is becoming a saaint not the ideal career choice with the best after-life pension, the lowest karma rates? On top of all that good fortune, you get fame - for all eternity. Or at least, for the duration of the Catholic Church....
From a more esoteric standpoint, the saint makes a beacon and might lighten your reading load to the dead from the book of the dead, say like the one written by E.J.Gold “The American Book of The Dead” - recently mentioned and recommended by #romanie (currently taking a look at it myself. Really dramatic stuff. Can't say if it's useful, yet.). Or like from a Book of Hours, turning to the Suffragium, where the saints who have gone before might not quite have wise instruction for the roaming souls inbetween death and rebirth, but will inspire the reader to keep at it, and root all the harder for the safe arrival (somewhere near God) of the dearly departed.
Hieronymous Bosch's Saint-to-be Anthony trying very hard to make his way out of a human-scale ogre-ridden world.
Sainthood can't be for the faint-hearted; for is it really a one-up from life? You get your own attribute and medallion with your likeness when you become a patron (to a guild, the blind, the sailors, dogs - I kid you not: St. Rocco); but do the perks outweigh the new workload? Good thing is - the same again as for being a starseed (see Musing 19): you don't get to choose! It's all up to God (after man has proposed). So the Question shifts: when does God see the Saint in you? When are you good enough! Now, this brings us into disconcerting terrain. If there be saints, then there be sinners, and if I am praying to a saint, I know what time of day it is for me!
What Makes A Saint?
I think to be a saint - like the ones in votive cards - is to be a person who sees the world in a way nobody else around them does in the same way, in the same place, at the same time. It's a lack of synchronicity. A lack of generosity. A fear of being different. This gives all sorts of upsets, suspicions and sundry other difficulties, ultimately leading to persecution until the saint gets judged, sentenced and martyred to death; and then, given a little time, a few second thoughts, everybody is sorry, makes ammends and atones with a plea to get saintliness declared. I realise, I may have used the word "saint" as if one walks the earth as such, but in acutal fact there is no way to go around as a saint really, and I should have written "saint-to-be" - whatever that might entail - for nobody is a saint till God gives the final seal of approval † (see footnote). This final green-light Word might take its time in coming (in any case well after the final moment of departure). Some things need to mature like a fine wine.
Becoming A Saint For Dummies
would be hard to write.
Funny thing is that you can’t really be martyred into sainthood, either, because you don’t really make yourself into a martyr at all, if you’re half the saint you are supposed to be: you just do what you do, not to be contrary or progressive, nor to endure and set an example of suffering, but to do what you have to do. It’s vocation, innit?
Look at Mother Teresa. You act out of consolidated free-will, freed of repressive thought, convinced of your truth. Of course, you might say that the System they bought into hardly left them that free. Let’s look at Mother Teresa again - blessed and relatively rapidly cannonised (with John Paul II setting procedures in motion for cannonisation, more swiftly than is the accepted time period to wait after death. The second closing-deal miracle was a reported miraculous cure from brain cancer, by posthumous prayers, and the first was a cure of stomach cancer. I presume the Pope and his advisors studied medical stats extensively but I prefer the ones of levitation or good old fashioned stigmata - although Anthropsophy can explain these in a different way and does so with our own in-house Inedian (permanent nihl by mouth) complete with the Stigmata: Judith von Halle!) †. Her beatification was not well received by the hyper critical biographer Christopher Hitchens (avid anti-theist) and although he is probably anti-saint in general, he protested her prompt cannonisation vehemently, going so far as to declare her a fanatic, fundamentalist fraud and not a benefactor of the poor.
↓I have no clue what Scottish Independence has to do with banning the bomb, but this site mixes up the two famously.
To say:“She was a friend of poverty [rather than the poor].... [and] she said that suffering was a gift from God . . . [spending] her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction" is harsh and hardly fair, coming from an anti-god man who has not experienced the grace of God. (What is anti-atheism, actually? A new term to me, it sounds particulary strident. I know how you can be anti the bomb but this sounds like a proper chip on the shoulder born out of much frustration). But look who's talking after Musing 19 where I am pretty anti-aliens. So let's scrap all this, and begin anew.
Saints. Who Needs 'Em?
So, maybe sainthoods are a bit like knighthoods, highly overrated with little significance attached to them really. It’s maybe a bit tacky even - if you compare Lancelot to Elton John, perhaps, you have to admit criteria have changed. If you rather take the stand that saints raise the bar of human striving, then I might have to point out that unrealistic expectations can also work counter-productively. Besides, we might have reached that point when material success and personal freedom appeals more greatly to the ambitious mind than the performing of miracles. Who still wants to become a Saint? Reiki-master, ok. Faith Healer, sure thing (there is money in that). Enlightend, no problem, I'll fit that in around my mid-life crises. But sainthood just doesn't seem to come with many benefits to mankind anymore.
Besides, have you ever thought that it might not be the best reward for the saint involved either? The glory, yes, the honor of it must be wonderful, but figure how this means a new work load and no rest for the entirely unwicked. Ok, granted most saints were workaholics anyway, but still.
Arild Rosenkranz →
What can I make of saints with my spiritual research glasses on? How would it work from a scientific metaphysical approach? I'll begin from my own specialisation, Anthroposophy: where are saints found there?
Well, eventhough there is a (Steinerian) Christology at the heart of Anthroposophy and Steiner designed (upon request but refusing leadership of the Community proper) the decor, symbology and observances, rites and rituals and much of the pastoral mission and pretty much all of the clairvoyantly perceived hermeneutics, the Christian Community is not technically linked to the Society in the slightest. But then again, an Anthroposophist would not expect to find a saint in a church setting exclusively. Indeed, the Waldorf school has integrated a number of them into their standard curriculum. Not only as exemplary lives, but also as guiding presences.
Did Steiner Communicate with Them?
Steiner was as good as anti-religious (which makes sense, set against the early 20th century, seeing as he wanted to get people to take initiative and break out of their thought-corsets and become actively responsible over their own destiny). Churches in his idea on them, were mainly straight-jackets or morally hypocritical. However, during his Theosophical years (mainly using Eastern mythology and symbology and yoga principles for spiritual alignment) he did have a startling personal Damascus Moment, when the Christ appeared to him in person (early 1910s I think). This is what makes the separation he insisted upon between Society and Christian Community extraordinarily interesting.
There are priests within the Christian Community who are strongly affilliated with Steiner, but they tend to come from a more Protestant background, so saints are not natural part and parcel of their belief-system. This new assimilation of intellectual concepts and vague intuitions often give awe-inspiring imaginations of the Christ Consciousness working through any given spirit-being down to the elementals which are not disregarded by this version of Christianity. Some theology students (which most Christian Community priests are in the most traditional sense) will have studied the saints with much care, but they are not likely to outrank other individualities of karmic significance. There are possibly more obscure figures in history outweighing the saints by their participation in world-events as compared to the weight lent to a saintly Catholic by a papal decree. "Anthroposophically informed" Christianity tries to see a larger spiritual current at work through a larger community of people.
Not that you'ld be doing Steiner any favours by "following " him or "believing"as he believed; he sent his best people out into the world never to return to the Goetheanum (and the rest of his closest associates were exiled no sooner had he died). His Christ Experience is all about finding your best self and living it to the fullest (very avant garde for the time!). Nowadays he is interpreted as quite stuffy and rigid, full of doctrine and dogma. I'm telling you he's not easy to read unless you learn his full alphabet, including the Alpha and Omega of his Epiphany.
Picking Saints Carefully
So are there any saints in Anthroposophy? Yep, even if you don't really bump into them up front. That is to say: St. Michael is the most important "saint", but he's not a saint! He's an arch-angel. St. Martin, St. Brigitta, St. Christopher, St. John - the Baptist mark festive occasions. They seem to "illustrate" a more general morality suited to the time of year, as a macro-micorcosmic correspondence.
Then you have St Francis omni-present as a relatively church-neutral character and animal-friend. He is your hero in first grade, followed by many other legends of legends who are saints of inspirational calibres. However, these saints are soon complemented by equally noble ranking Greek heroes and Gods, as well as the Indian or Sumerian mythological characters. Mysteries (cults) and Biblical stories all form part of history lessons. This is not easy to defend as prepratory for a new and inspired way of thinking, feeling and willing as a mature adult, but in principle, I am convinced it does work. In practice, however, the results are pityful. You might say, wake up lady: proof of the pudding is in the eating! But I have eaten of it too... and I derive a great sense of belonging to this world when I approach it with Anthropsophical leading thoughts in mind.
Not quite a saint, but I cannot omit to mention the omnipresent Maria, mother of Jesus, the Christ, within what may look like an Anthroposophical religious framework - but that will be putting the horse slightly behind the cart and may Maria precisely illustrate what I mean by that with her precedence well established before the first churches were built (think of the Maria Mystery cultus site at the foundation of Chartres, but go also further back to the Isis cult, or even the possible Sophia inspiration for the Venus of Willendorf →).
Perhaps it takes every image of Mary to point to one and the same entity, by the way. We have our virgin and our mother and our pieta-woman, and our assumed "saint" (her miracle is obvious, I hope!). And then the more Gnostic, Rosicrucian, Hermetic and Manichaen aspects of her sisterhood with the Logos and the Paraclete. There are many ways to run with this spiritual entitity, a stream moving through the heart of Man.
The preferred image in Waldorf schools is the representation by Rafaello of the Madonna with the Infant on her arm (↑ see picture above). This work has a "cosmic" note to it, for the "mercurial"- drop-like and wind-swept energy. This further brings into play the healing and communicative spirit of Hermes (Trimegistos). May this remind us of the "function" any saint would have within Anthroposophical practice: to stimulate a flow of cosmic energy within ourself. Their personalities and lives make accessible accounts for the younger imaginative brain but their actual bones are of no interest. It is a highly complicated debate whether all the saints (which Anthroposophy and the Catholic Church may agree upon as saints) are actually living in the Higher Worlds as we speak. Some of them as spiritual entities may have chosen to reincarnate. This then follows the Buddhist idea of Boddhisattvas (rather than saints). The correspondences are interesting to study but "evidence" for one perception being more precise than the other is hard to find. So where do the Ascended Masters fit into this?
Patron Saint of Dogs: Rocca, Rock or St. Roche (Was he bitten by that dog!?‡) | Helena Bonham Carter - Alice in Wonderland, 2010 - definitely no saint - the Red Queen with a penchant for croquet | St Lucy (Patron of the blind) Francesco Cossa, 1470
Part 3
The Masters Of Big Business
If I have a few issues with saints I have a tractor load of them with Ascended Masters. But it probably boils down to what you mean by the term. We have many systems and traditions. The last one I researched put me into a bit of a kerfuffle with well-meaning, soulful people taking it all too far (commercially) and messing it up into one big happy spiritual melting-pot. It felt like ghurkins and cream with a dollop of peanutbutter on top and some chocolate sprinkles for decorative effect. We’re not all pregnant, you know! Not all waiting to burst out and birth ourselves into the magical world of miracle working spirit buddies. To put Lao Tse, Kwan Yin, Christ and Maria all together on the same masterful level is too problematic for too many people, if you ask me.
I am thinking of LichtWesen - an extended range of products which work with an incredibly wide spectrum of spirit energes. How they all got them into a bottle boggles my mind a bit. But, also here, I rolled up my sleeves and worked with many essences. What did I make of it?
On a good day, I resonated well to Metatron (whom I can't envision or place in Christion or Eastern esoteric history very well - a bit New-Agey by my standards) but the Michael angel in the bottle didn't cut it for me. On the other hand Raphael gave me wings when I was at my lowest point in 2013 and the My Togetherness Tincture (50) made the necessary stay at my parents' house during my rennovation just bearable when it threatened to go extremely pear-shaped. Despite these detailed observations I was able to make, I cannot share the enthusiasm for these sprays and oils like my physiotherapist still does years on. I am happy to leave it at: different strokes for different folks - as long as you don't string me a half-baked philosophy on "why it works". I am after the science of it (which is a tight internal logic that must run across the entire board of the history and geography of human spiritual awareness.)
It's things like how they add the Count Saint-Germain (that elusive and immortal aristocrat popping up at every significant occultist’s coctail party throughout the centuries) and Kuthumi (Blavatsky’s BFF) into the mixer that gets my goat.
Maybe, it's even terrifying....
[↑Interesting association: this essence No. 3, el Moyra, above, for children and trust, bearing in mind that Moyra is the man in the middle of the photograph ↑ - although … IS HE? Read More Here - even taking into consideration that the “photo” is only a drawing, representing etheric countenances.]
In any case, the virtually anti-Christian but otherwise extremely eclectic Blavatsky would not mind finding her Ascended Masters alongside Mary and Christ, with Pallas Athena and Helios and Orion all linking arms on the same webpage. Steiner would advise you stay closer to earth when it comes to working with spiritual energies: encounter the elementals and concentrate on your relationship to Christ. Is he within the I that you are already?
Is the Christ Within Me?
Have I met the Christ? Did I find myself on the Road to Damascus one day?
No, can't say I did.
It's a more obscure affair for me.
For me, I found the Christ ever more often a useful image in my attempt at translating the dance of colour that is life on earth. What I read about the Christ (and His position within the larger order as Kyriot and Logos inspired individuality) in Anthroposophical terms - once I accepted the new language as a choreography to a familiar piece of music - did not vie with my personal experience of the Inbetween or Difference, Cosmic Harmony or Sacred Geometry, or Tao and Non-Being that I find exists in the duality of light and darkness that is existence. If nothing else, Steiner (and Maryon)'s Christ as Representative of Man ← is kind of a genius, artistic "find" - once you know how to "read" it.
Wish I were Penelope to weave you a clearer picture of what that feels like to me.
It's hard to say what this inner light that won't die within is otherwise. But there is also a certain reluctance to take this any father all by myself. And leave so many behind. It's not "behind", of course, in the sense of leaving you all doomed! I am not a Catholic! But it feels akward taking a leap of faith by yourself. The faithful say that's because my belief is actually doubt-ridden. The sceptics keep their fingers crossed that I might come to my senses yet.
So: Yay or Nay to Saints?
If I had to take a crack at what makes a traditional sainthood hard to buy into nowadays, I’d say its because the world has too many saints. Our mother's can manage to be saintly a lot better with dishwashers and hair-dryers speeding up their chores and boosting their self-esteem. If Mother Teresa adds an extra scoop into the cone then it's for her professionalism or singular focus, we'd love to find the time for. It makes her come out with really cool observations like her definition of poverty: an empoverishment of soul. It travels well out of the slums of Calcutta.
Enslaved by Sainthood or the Master of the Masters?
Is becoming a saint the liberation from human bondage? Is that the point, though? Besides, how free is anyone with a dogma? Furthermore, globalisation makes centralised inspiration problematic (with the Vatican as a monopoly provider). How democratic and conducive to community building can sainthood still be? If the saint is the one who gets martyred it doesn’t even necessarily mean that they were the only one doing this amazing stuff, thinking these noble thoughts; but they might have been the clumsiest one sticking out their neck too far at the wrong time, just when the nuttiest Red Queen came along swinging her flamingo mallet. So, can we still admire the saints of old as shining examples? Or have they become reduced to illustrations of rebels with a cause back in the day? Where are these souls then now? What happens to your eternal status if nobody believes in you anymore!?! Panic in Heaven City.
Escape from Oppression?
Saints still work well in times of dire need.
Striving for sainthood may become addictive, though.
Oppression and misunderstanding may work a bit like alcohol for those prone to addiction. For such people it is easier not to drink at all than have the occasional sociable glass of wine. In this comparison, inversely, there may be the attraction to martyrdom and misery, helping to keep one on the righteous path. Suffering as crutch in the practice of self-restraint and sticking to positive ideals. It lends persuasion besides.
Repressed and persecuted for her belief in former Communist Czechoslovakia, Sister Marková expresses this as follows: “I am glad that I lived through it all [communism]. How else can a person show that his faith is true than by overcoming something?” To my ears this almost sounds like martyrdom and a ticket for sainthood! I rather empathise with the frustration of not being allowed to follow your heart, and the cruel oppression of others for the sake of power for no good cause.
We see a lot of young virginal saints in the Middle-ages who escaped marriages to (dirty old) men refusing to consummate their vows and suffering the consequences. Or cannonised nuns who were widows seeking safety in a cloister. We find a lot of very old and dead saints-in-potentia, semi blessed, awaiting a final verdict. How can these souls find rest in the meantime? It's like waiting for the results of the Eurovision Song Contest. This doesn’t sit well with me. I could be seated, for all eternity, on my orange plastic chair, before the Pearly Gates, next to a really nice dude who 30 years later turns out to be a saint! Fancy that. I will let you know if I found his promotion valid from my point of view, knowing him inside and out by then, I presume - unless of course we act very British and pretend we are on the commuter train, for three decades, and do not exchange more than a polite nod each morning).
Saint Thomas of Aquinas. An interesting case in point. Steiner is said to be the reincarnation of Aquinas! So praying to this saint might lead to several put-through-calls, I guess... complicated networks required.... new dimensional thinking or a reassessment of who you think you might have been? Clearly, we can no longer be too facile in our understanding of saints
Enviable Special Status?
Did God make Mother Theresa more special than you or me. Not post, but pre? For then some of us don't stand a chance. If he made her so that she heard her vocation; so that she dedicated her life piously to relieving suffering and saving souls, then sainthood is predestined. Aren't Catholics not rather into that? God determines and man may choose to follow or disobey? God knows best. Then what is man doing asking for a sainthood? It's like a five year old asking for a cookie after having brushed their bleeps! They should know better. Is this an inconsistency in cannonisation a priori? I am sure they've held a council on this and decided it isn't.
Now it gets interesting again: what made Teresa so saintly, we might conclude, is precsely that she was a self-made woman. A self-deteriming commitment and devotion formed her soul, purifying it, fortifying it into a superior form. She is veritably no longer "like" us, one of us: but better, or good enough to be one ofGod's elect. Well then, there is work to be done people and not lower bar to be set than sainthood!
Maybe, that waiting for the second miracle is not at all waiting for God's final judgement, but the time it takes for our own realisation to kick in: this has to be a miracle worker! A soul who could channel God and nothing but GodForce into our lives. Wowie-zowie. That needs to be marked. The Saint becomes proof of God not by God's approval but as God's Saint/channeler. Of course, (ehm... I suppose) this is made easier by watching and smelling a body burn (that martyrdom that gives a direct seal of approval for sainthood). Then three cheers for Pope John Paul who didn't need all of those five years after death to go by before he felt it was a no-brainer that this woman was a saint, all along. So what I said earlier about not being able to walk the world as a saint I must retract: it is precisely your living sainthood that is what makes it possible for you to sustain your miracle working posthumously. Delays in pronouncement, however, have hereby been found nonsensical and subversive to all belief in God working through strong channels in every-day miracles. It this also to reveal the biggest secret of all: the concern that we might discvover saints for ourselves (withou a papal cerificate even)?
I can imagine that this might not be favourable to the hierarchical structure the Roman Catholic Church depends on for its continued authority. Saints could start doing it for themselves! May this also show why this church in particular (or the Jesuits as Steiner referred to his arch enemies) stands at bitter odds with Anthroposophy - causing sparks to fly.... ( By the same token, some extremely interesting cases exist where highly committed members of the Anthroposophical Society converted to Catholicism - probably for a lack of mysticism within the more fussy and priggish Groups and maybe, the powerful-thinker - or stubborn Einzelgänger - finds a more stable backdrop in a history of worldly power there....)
The ruins of the first Goetheanum after the fire. Report of the fire from Basler Nachrichten, January 1923.
I sill think you might need to pray for saints. Especially those who weren't martyred, and have to cope on but a veneration or a benediction. The nuns would pray either way. They understand that a human soul still needs human support in the spiritual world. A life with God and spirits alone can make for a raw return after your stint on terra firma in atomic bonds. The nuns and monks create etheric networks between Heaven and Earth that way, which is always good. But does the saint upstairs need it more or less than we, or is it a case of having earned it? Indeed, maybe some of us never "get that far" in the first place, dissipated into the cosmos as remnant ether. Never having achieved anything translatable into a spiritbody. It seems only suffering or compassion with such suffering can do that for you. Anthroposophical thought does not ignore this, but still opts not to take a path of martyrdom or self-mutilation.
Why wouldn't saints (specifically mortal and often lowly born folks) get disorientated in a vast Kamaloka, Astral World or God's Realm? Especially if it's just a cosmic dimension you end up in. May we remember that the Ancient Egyptians did not go out of their way to build massive pyramids for their most honored and sacred leaders without imagining some difficulties up ahead for even the most deserving soul.... I find myself back to the criteria of what makes one more special (saintly/divine) than the other... Anthroposophy can only address this very circumspectly from within the understanding of karma and reincarnation (a far-reaching hypostatis is thereby required).
Until we know for sure how well you are faring, Mother Teresa, my prayer of blessings today goes out to you. I imagine you have never got a quiet moment to yourself, and that you might even be having a harder time out there on your own without that special someone than most mothers and wives.... Jee, could be me - but I'm not looking for a sainthood, thank you very much.
May we end in trusting God's inscrutible ways always work as and when they work, with or without the label on the tin?
Amen.
Footnote:
† Procedurally, a miracle -- literally -- is needed for a blessed to be declared a saint.
For beatification, the Vatican requires proof of a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession, unless the candidate was martyred for his or her faith.
The second miracle -- the one needed for canonization -- must take place after the beatification ceremony and is seen as God's final seal of approval on the church's proclamation.
‡ A little more research informed me Saint Rocco’s, (aka. Rog or Rotch as a child) that the leg wound, somewhat unpersuasively perhaps, refers to his infection with the plague! But he survived! Sustained in his hour close to death by a spontaneous and miraculous fountain of water springing from the ground beside him and bread brought to him by a dog (hmmm.. yum-yum). Thus saved, he brought relief to the sick until he was imprisoned (on suspicions of being suspicious) till he died.
Endnote: addendum
I was delighted to discover Simone Weil’s definition of the miracle: “The capacity to pay attention to an afflicted person is something very rare, very difficult; it is nearly a miracle. It is a miracle. Nearly all those who believe they have this capacity do not. Warmth, movements of the heart, and pity are not sufficient.”
